Live Action Mafia

A game of sneakiness and paranoia
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 Post subject: Support the Vampires!
PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 3:58 am 
Hey everybody,

The new role of this game, Vampire, has the potential to be both very strong for town, and very bad for town. Vampires need to drink the blood of 2 players, but when they do, the result is a much stronger player, who has the potential to catch mafia who try to kill them. On the other hand, with no blood or an incorrect guess, the are very weak. What does this mean? It means they need our support.

(Also, Vampires, make sure to feed on two people at a time. It's better to alternate feeding twice and not feeding at all, than to every feed on just one person.)

How can we support the vampires? We can't simply post our roles, because this makes set-a-trap too strong. What we can do instead is post a pair of roles, one of which is our own, and one which is not. A vampire that can feed off of both of those roles can therefore feed safely, whereas mafia cannot do anything useful with that information. Importantly, no one can lie. Since Vampires find all mafia tasty, there is nothing the mafia can do with this knowledge.

To start us off, I will post two roles, one of which is mine:

I am either Desperado or Investigator.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:04 am 
I am either Conspiracy Theorist or Investigator.

Image


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:48 am 
I am either superhero or gay knight.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:56 am 
I'm not convinced this is correct play yet, can we hold off on doing this for a little bit. (mafia set a traps are much, much, more powerful, though publicly forcing double roles also limits mafia pretty hard)


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:34 am 
Based on initial discussion at ET last night, I actually think it's best for vampires to sacrifice themselves (volunteer to be lynched or self-destruct by drinking bad blood on purpose) because they're such a liability to town if they get killed and give the mafia a scheme. Vampires can pseudo-prophet by killing themselves if someone posts a list of roles that they claim they are not, and then a vampire who finds none of the remaining possible town roles tasty drinks that persons blood. If the vampire dies, then we know that person is innocent because mafia show up as tasty. I believe this is better than having vampires die without giving info to town by just accidentally drinking bad blood.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:44 am 
Oh never mind, that was based on the previous vampire rules before they got changed last night.

It might still be good for vampires to volunteer to be lynched if there are no better lynch targets, or to use the pseudo-prophet ability regardless of the mafia gaining a kaboom. I'd need to think about it some more.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:52 pm 
Also, now the mafia would have a 50% chance of guessing your identity (rather than 1/#roles), and if they have decent evidence suggesting you're not one of those two roles that's a pretty easy set-a-trap.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:57 pm 
In general, it's not worth it to set-a-trap with a 50% chance of success. But yes, it is now extra important for people to not leak information regarding which of the roles you are. For instance, some information would suggest that you are superhero or investigator, or that you are gay knight or innocent child. If that is combined with one of these statements, then mafia can set-a-trap with a good chance of success.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 3:53 pm 
So let's say everyone in game posts role options. There are 28 combinations of two roles, and 3 of those will fit a vampire's taste preferences. So, With 48 players, there would be an average of only 5 that a vampire would find tasty. That's a mere two days of invincibility in exchange for every townsperson making their role at least a 50/50 guess for mafia (which might be more depending on how much mafia get small role hints). Additionally, invincibility becomes less useful if the mafia get extra kabooms from killing vampires.

On the other hand, lynching people who volunteer to be lynched seems to be a waste of valuable lynches. Although vampires should probably feel free to do sketchy (but good for town) things, since getting lynched isn't as bad for them.

The pseudo-prophet ability might be useful, but I think
a. Vampires should have stronger suspicions than the average prophet before using it, since there is a greater penalty for being wrong.
b. Vampires should wait until mid-game (when mafia is more likely to have used conscription) before doing this.

Basically vampires just lead sad existences.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:51 pm 
I have read the objections, but am willing to take the personal risk, and I do think there's benefit to town in having vampires who can become temporarily invincible or who can at least prevent themselves from providing resources to mafia should they die.

I am either a Vampire or a Vigilante.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:16 pm 
No really, people should stop giving the Mafia free role information.

The best use of Vampires should be as a prophet-esque mafia check. It is in town's interest if the vampires die by purposefully drinking bad blood, even if this gives Mafia an extra kaboom. The knowledge of a proven innocent is valuable enough to town that an extra kaboom is a small price to pay. A vampire being immune for a single day is not a large enough incentive to outweigh the opportunity cost of not being able to use them to check for mafia.

I think best play for the Vampires should be to drink either blood from either 0 or 1 people per day, never 2 (because then town gets fewer bits of information). In addition, Vampires should tell someone who they're drinking blood from, so that information doesn't die with them.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:27 pm 
Lisa is going to post something soon that I discussed with her and agree with. I'm going to be going to EC soon, and I really hope that Sam and I don't get stuck out in the cold. :(


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:45 pm 
I am either gay knights with lopezv or gay knights with abergal.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:46 pm 
So here's what Katie and I discussed. Instead of people posting their roles publicly, vampires should go around and ask people "Are you either role X, Y, or Z?" Before asking, the vampire should randomly decide (coin flip or something) whether those three roles are the ones they find tasty or the roles they don't find tasty. Townspeople should answer honestly, and mafia will be forced to answer yes or no without knowing whether they're claiming to be tasty or not. Based off the answers the vampires get, they can either:

1. Taste the blood of two people who should be tasty to them, becoming invincible for the next day. If two people they asked should be tasty, there's no way for this to fail, since mafia are tasty and townspeople should always tell the truth.

2. Taste the blood of one person who should not be tasty to them and publicly post about this. This would be them acting similar to an extreme prophet. If they die at the end of the day, the person whose blood they tasted is confirmed innocent. If the vampire does not die, the person whose blood they tasted is confirmed mafia, and the vampire is invincible the next day, and the vampire has another chance to perform the same type of test.

If a vampire gets lynched it isn't that bad, so if someone's been asking this type of role information a lot and hasn't died they should probably get lynched. This is a disincentive for mafia to fake claim vampire to try to get a bunch of role information. If a mafia gets asked this question they could set a trap on a vampire, but they wouldn't know how much blood the vampire had drunk the previous night so it's risky. The mafia either use kaboom to be safe and maybe gain it back, or use bang and possibly get a kaboom but possibly get caught if the vampire is invincible.

This strategy doesn't reveal role information publicly so it isn't as dangerous, it gives us a good way to test for confirmed mafia/townies, and it will get us some invincible vampires.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:50 pm 
I am either gay knights with ltchin or gay knights with lopezv.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:53 pm 
Confirming that Lisa and I discussed this and that it seems reasonable to me. Slight edit: In #2 the vampire isn't invincible the next day.

Also, as I said before, it may be worth it to wait a bit to lower the chance of mafia conscripting the innocent.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 7:13 pm 
Thanks, the vampire isn't invincible the next day the way I wrote it. Alternatively, the vampire could drink from two people - one who they know is tasty (town shouldn't lie and mafia are tasty) and one who should not be tasty (unless they're actually mafia). Then if the vampire lives they will be invincible to bangs since they drank from two people, and they'll have caught a mafia.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 7:41 pm 
Anyone who's already posted two roles should not answer any questions about what role they are or are not, since mafia may disguise as vampires to get free kills by narrowing down who you may be. While I'm not sure what the correct play for vampires is, make sure you do not mix these strategies!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 9:30 pm 
Stop publicly posting role information, please. We don't care if vampires live, their sole purpose in the game should be to check a townsperson (i.e. what Lzahray wrote in #2). Vampires should only ever be drinking blood from 0 or 1 people.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:16 pm 
I strongly disagree with this. I think it's worth it for vampires to become invulnerable, and that they should be going for 2 bites, should they get enough information. To ensure this, more people need to support them.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:26 pm 
Why? Vampires work best for scoping out the mafia. If we just give them people who aren't mafia, all they have is invulnerability. If a mafia can't kill a vampire then they'll go and kill someone else, and we still have net travel toward town losing. The possibility of mafia having kaboom seems to be a worthwhile risk in my mind, if we can find out at least one of the five mafia in game. Other than vampires we are capable of finding mafia as well.

Vampire is just a hard role, but it's not worth giving mafia food for set a trap, or even just useful targets. They're almost like Desperados, Vigilantes and maybe even the Innocent child: doomed to die when they use their power, but it's all for the town's gain. Every role has a risk.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:34 pm 
I don't think it's worth it to have every townsperson in game narrow their role possibilities down to 1/2, given that a vampire would only be able to be invulnerable for two days overall (on average). That allows mafia to take tiny hints and turn them into traps. If someone says, "I know a *role X* to a mafia, the mafia can pigeonhole who claims they may be role X and compare them with who that person would be likely to know (this has been done before without the 1/2 role information). And as I said before, roles which have similar properties, like superhero and investigator, or like gay knight and innocent child, can end up pigeonholed from the combination of the 1/2 reveal and knowing those properties. Worst of all is if someone posts saying they may be an innocent child; mafia have TWO slaughter the weaks, and so they can afford to use one of them for guessing.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:37 pm 
I don't have time to go into detail yet (I've been occupied by a game of Diplomacy all day and need to get some work done now) but my immediate response is NOOOOOOOOO!!!

Mafia win by getting role information. If they're able to get a couple roles this way then we are well on our way to losing.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:02 pm 
Everybody who has given role information in this or another thread (especially if it was truthful...) do NOT give any more information about your role publicly or privately (except if absolutely necessary.) Be ambiguous about your role wherever possible. Better yet, just refuse to discuss it unless there is an absolute necessity to do so.

This is mainly for new players, but veterans could use a reminder as well: the mafia getting significant amounts of role information is a likely game-ending disaster, because of set-a-trap.
Players should not share their roles with anybody, even people they very much resist, unless there is an extremely strong and urgent need-to-know. To first approximation, don't share your role information with anybody. If you really trust somebody, it is completely reasonable to discuss plans with them and bounce ideas off of them more than you would with other players. But do not tell them your role except for on an overwhelming need-to-know basis.

I'll add some execptions when I can make another long post later (vampire shenanigans are a likely exception, but NOT as has been done on this thread.) other players may have already done a good job of this. Speaking of which, read ksedlar's basic strategy post, and read my basic strategy post from the last game!


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:27 pm 
From a quick read through this, I think Lisa's post is reasonable. But please, please, please, stop giving role information publicly (sorry isaacg, I overwhelmingly disagree with you.)


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